Alligator Tombstone of Alligator Joe
Jacksonville, Florida
Hubert Campbell's 1926 headstone is topped with a small, stone-carved alligator. He was one of the earliest gator farm entrepreneurs, known as "Alligator Joe," although this isn't mentioned on his grave.
Alligator Joe built gator attractions in Los Angeles and Hot Springs, Arkansas -- the still-thriving Arkansas Alligator Farm -- but developed his innovative techniques at the Florida Ostrich Farm in Jacksonville. Joe separated his gators into pens by size -- so the big ones wouldn't eat the small ones -- and trained his gators in a number of skills that have since been lost, such as dancing, racing, carrying children on their backs, and climbing a ladder to slide down a chute into a swampy pond. His goal, often forgotten, was the preservation of the alligator species, which at the time was being slaughtered by Floridians with guns.
Hubert Campbell is sometimes understandably confused with Warren "Alligator Joe" Frazier, a Florida competitor, who pioneered the sport of alligator wrestling.